The paratroopers extend beneath Marie Curie, beneath the ranks of platinum bicycles withdrawing humus from the soil bank. The smaller the children, the closer the puddles asphalting into the Greek pyramid where theophany has gone into anxious hiding. The paratroopers consult their pocket chronometers and agree that the bicycles are sublimating into golden, glowing vapor at an acceptable rate, beyond which the manufacturers of bullets gyrate in delirious noncompliance with Darwin & Sartre. Marie Curie shifts her weight, just a little, causing the paratroopers to encrust the crowds of tourists & speleologists like dried honey strung in fire from one spectral coal train to another. In her sleep, Marie Curie picks up a paratrooper, studies its seven waving appendages, then places it to her mouth and ear. “Hello,” she says. “Hello.”